"THQ makes a fine impression with their debut in the FPS genre"

The Game

Red Faction is the latest First Person Shooting game for the PS2 by THQ. The PS2 already has a fine line up of FPS games with such hits like Unreal Tournament, Timesplitters, and Quake 3: Revolution. So with this game coming out so late, will it be worthy of a purchase? Let's get onto the review and find out.

The Story

You are a lowly miner laborer, who jumped on a opportunity with hundreds of others to be the first people to work mining the caves of Mars. But lots of mistreatment to the miners have forced them to rebel, and form a group called Red Faction. Your goal is to make it off the planet alive.

Graphics

First impressions of these visuals are really good. Once you start up the game you see, nice huge environments, detailed down to the tiniest tidbit. The caves, factories, machinery, and nearly all other areas look very lifelike, and just makes the gaming experience better all around. The character models also look marvelous. You can easily tell the miners from the guards by the outfits they wear. All the guns have their own distinctive look so you can easily tell them apart. A pistol looks exactly how you expect it to. Everything moves at a nice fluid pace, and there isn't much slowdown or choppiness at all like in most other FPS, except in intense multi player battles. The menus are designed rather simply, and are very similar to the radial menus used in the early Sega Sports games on the Dreamcast.

Sound

Now there is one thing I love about FPS games in the sound category, and that is voice acting. And yes, it is featured in this game. Most of the games main characters have there own distinctive voices. The lowly miner sounds like a nerd, and guards sound like your average schoolyard bully. The guards even shout at you when you shoot them and what not, just like in Perfect Dark. The music in the game is very faded in the background so you can barely hear it. The sound effects are pretty much what you expect them to be. All the walking, gunshots, explosions, and everything else sounds the way they should. So a very big plus all around in the sound area in this game.

Game play

This is a First Person Shooter, so there are several control layouts for you to choose from. I like the default one the most. Use one analog stick to walk, the other to turn. You can assign the other buttons to do the other actions like change weapons, duck, jump, and so on. Controlling is really a breeze, and you should get them down in no time. One part I really like about the game engine is how you can blow holes into walls and use them as short cuts to hop to other parts of levels. The game has a nice amount of weapons, there's even one that is very similar to the Farsight in Perfect Dark. The only weapon I don't like in here is the flamethrower. It just never connects when you shoot it dead on with somebody.

The game has an awesome training mode if you decide to go through it. I recommend to do so, especially for gamers new to FPS games. It pretty much walks you through the games controls, and you get great practice target shooting, and you even get to ride in a submarine too. The game has a great main story mode. You start off the game by just ending another day of work, when out of no where a rebellion occurs where the workers and guards go to war. You make your way through several stages and make come across many obstacles in your goal to make it off Mars alive. The game also has a multi player mode where you and a friend can go against each other or team up to against the computer in a variety of modes.

Replay Value

You'll be playing several hours in order to make it through the main story mode. It is really fun and challenging, and I'm sure most people will probably play it twice in case they miss anything. The game's multi player is a blast, but I am very confused and mad why the developers made it so only two people can play the game. You can go against with up to four computer controlled players, but for some reason only two people can play. Maybe they're pulling an EA where they're purposely leaving out a main mode so they can so they added something major to a sequel.

In Brief

+: Great environments, Superb Story, Innovative training mode

-: Only two human players can play in multi player, Flamethrower is disappointing

The Final Ratings Rundown

Graphics: 9.4 Sound: 9.0 Game play: 9.3 Replay Value: 5.8

Overall: 8.3

Rounded to fit GameFAQs Score: 8

Comments

A very impressive FPS by THQ for PS2. The finest graphics and sound followed up with a great storyline is a great recipe for any game. If you're a FPS fan, you better make sure to gobble this one up right away. But if you're more of a party gamer and but FPS games for multi player mode, you better think twice. It's just plain out stupid why THQ made this game only two player, with all the other PS2 First Person Shooters like Unreal, Quake 3, and Timesplitters all being 4 player.